JFK, Churchill, Roosevelt

Dear Editor:

Such mortification! I am embarrassed by my error in my letter printed in the December 5 edition of the COURIER, in which I (hopefully not too smugly!) corrected the COURIER’s error of November 28. The reporter stated that Ambassador Edward Marks, in a talk at Temple Beth Israel the previous week, had cited John F. Kennedy’s famous quote that “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” In my letter, I added to the COURIER’s error myself by erroneously attributing the quote to Winston Churchill.

Hopefully there are some who will believe my assurance that I have always understood the famous quote was made not by Churchill, as I had claimed, but by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fortunately,  for those who care, my error has been properly corrected by other readers in the December 12 edition. Hopefully, I will be forgiven for my apparent “mind-slip.”

My apologies also to Ambassador Marks, whose talk was immensely informative as well as pleasurable, and who I am confident actually attributed the quote correctly to President Roosevelt.

Mea culpa, mea culpa!

Don Fisher

Claremont

Gold Line in Orange

Dear Editor:

Very exciting to see the progress being made on the Gold Line extension to Azusa. As a Claremont resident, I am hopeful that funding will be procured for Phase 2B so that the line will eventually be extended out to Montclair (and possibly Ontario International Airport as well).

I commute from my home in Claremont to my office in Brea each day using the Orange (57) Freeway. The 57 is an extremely congested highway, due in large part to the manner in which the 57 and Pomona (60) freeways briefly merge in Diamond Bar before separating again. The 20-mile drive from Claremont to Brea in the morning takes me the better part of an hour, even though I leave my house at 6 a.m. The drive home in the evening is even worse.

It occurs to me that, to the extent Phase 2B of the Gold Line is eventually built, it would make a lot of sense to explore another extension of the Gold Line generally following the 57 freeway, from the San Dimas area south to the new Anaheim Regional Transit Intermodal Center (ARTIC) facility in Anaheim that just opened earlier this month.

The existing rail right-of-way in which Gold Line Phase 2B is planned to be constructed crosses directly under the 57 just north of Arrow Highway, providing the northern starting point for such a route. The new ARTIC facility is located across the street from Honda Center (home of the Anaheim Ducks), across the freeway from Anaheim Stadium, and less than three miles from Disneyland.

Such a project would certainly be expensive, no doubt, as there is no existing rail right-of-way to utilize, nor is there vacant land available in the median of the 57 freeway for most of the route. That said, the long-term planning benefits of such a rail line cannot be ignored. Traffic on the 57 freeway is not going to get any better over time. A light rail line connecting eastern Los Angeles County to northern Orange County makes a lot of sense to consider.

Marc Selznick

Claremont